The managed service provider (MSP) industry is booming with opportunities. At the same time, MSPs face the challenge of balancing customer satisfaction with profitability, making strategic decisions more important than ever. For 35% of MSPs, building cyber resiliency for customers is a top strategic priority, but that goal often runs up against resource constraints and rising operational costs.[i] To stay competitive, MSPs are focusing on improving operational efficiency (35%) and keeping costs under control (33%).[ii]

One of the smartest ways to tackle these strategic goals is by partnering with OpenText to deliver managed detection and response (MDR) services. This partnership empowers MSPs to offer a cutting-edge, fully managed detection and response service, taking the weight off operational costs and simplifying the complexity of building and managing an in-house MDR solution.

Here are five ways OpenText MDR helps MSPs overcome their biggest challenges:

1. Filling the security staff resource and skills gap

Staffing can be a perpetual challenge for MSPs, particularly when it comes to hiring and retaining skilled cybersecurity professionals. With a global shortage of 4.8 million cybersecurity experts, this issue is only becoming more pressing. MSPs feel the strain in several key areas, including:

• Managing an overwhelming volume of alerts with a limited team
• Cultivating the advanced skills needed to thoroughly investigate and prioritize threats
• Attracting and retaining top security talent to close skills gaps and support business growth

OpenText MDR tackles this challenge for MSPs head-on by providing you with a fully managed or co-managed MDR partnership. With OpenText MDR, MSPs can access 24/7/365 security expertise and continuous threat monitoring without the cost or complexity of building an in-house SOC. This not only eases the pressure on your internal teams but ensures a high-level of security coverage for your customers at all times.

2. Streamlining alert management

Detecting advanced threats requires a sophisticated approach to monitoring a customer’s attack surface. This is where SIEMs come in—essential for correlating data and identifying threats. However, SIEMs can be complex to configure, manage, and tune, which can lead to a high volume of false positives. For MSPs with limited resources, this flood of irrelevant alerts can overwhelm teams and drain operational efficiency.

OpenText MDR solves this by leveraging advanced threat intelligence to correlate security logs and reduce false positives, all while managing the SIEM and monitoring alerts for you. By continuously prioritizing critical threats, our experts handle the complexity of alert management, allowing MSPs to focus on what matters most—securing their customers—without the burden of filtering through a flood of false alarms.

3. Accelerating incident response

With a flood of alerts constantly coming in and the need to pivot between multiple consoles to investigate, MSP security teams often struggle with slow, time-consuming incident response. The pressure to act quickly is high, as swift action is essential to prevent the disastrous outcomes of a breach. However, many teams find themselves bogged down, bouncing between disparate tools and struggling to identify and respond to threats in real-time.

OpenText MDR addresses this challenge with fast, proactive monitoring and continuous threat hunting to detect suspicious activity early. Our dedicated experts streamline incident response by quickly identifying threats and escalating them within 15 minutes, ensuring MSPs can act fast and minimize the impact of potential breaches.

4. Simplifying security management across complex environments

Managing a customer’s complex environment can be challenging for MSPs. With diverse security tools, large volumes of data, and multi-environment deployments, the complexity of managing each unique environment can overwhelm MSP teams, stretching resources thin and hindering effective security management. Delivering cybersecurity services that support your diverse customer environments requires a solution that integrates seamlessly and simplifies management without adding to the burden.

OpenText MDR makes it easy to support your customer environments by offering a fully integrated solution that seamlessly supports your MSP partner and tools ecosystem. With AI-driven automation, OpenText MDR processes vast amounts of data quickly, integrating effortlessly with over 500 tools and services. Its lightweight agent ensures easy deployment across multiple environments, providing end-to-end visibility through a single dashboard. This not only streamlines security management but also helps MSPs leverage their existing investments while benefiting from expert human analysts guiding the process.

5. Driving revenue growth without barriers to entry

For MSPs, staying competitive and standing out in your region requires offering innovative solutions that meet customer needs without the complexity and barriers often associated with new vendor partnerships. Having an MDR offering can be a key driver for growth, but the challenge lies in finding an MDR vendor that has both a cutting-edge solution and flexible licensing, without the constraints of long-term contracts or rigid terms.
OpenText MDR addresses this by offering a subscription-based model with no minimum contract, making it easy to integrate into your existing service offerings. MSPs can access additional services like penetration testing, vulnerability management, and custom incident response plans as needed, with simple, integrated billing through OpenText’s Secure Cloud Platform. This flexibility allows you to scale your MSPs cybersecurity services as your business grows.

Discover how OpenText MDR can empower your MSP to overcome challenges and drive growth.

[i] Datto 2024 Global State of the MSP Report

[ii] Datto 2024 Global State of the MSP Report

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